The mapping isn't the hard part. The sequencing is.
You know your airport better than any consultant will. What is easy to miss — because it happens quietly — is how much of the federal calendar is already running.
Entitlement funds expire quietly
For nonprimary and nonhub primary airports, apportioned entitlement funds stay available for the fiscal year they were apportioned plus the three following fiscal years. Unobligated amounts revert to the discretionary fund. Nothing announces it — the balance simply stops being yours.
Source: 49 U.S.C. § 47117(b) · FAA AIP glossary
Survey data has to exist before the project does
FAA guidance asks that design data be submitted to Airports GIS two to three years before a project is completed, so instrument flight procedures can be developed in time for commissioning. A survey started when construction starts is already late.
An out-of-date ALP becomes someone else's leverage
Grant Assurance 29 obligates a sponsor to keep a current ALP and not to allow alterations that conflict with the approved plan. Where a nonconforming change adversely affects federally funded property, the sponsor can be asked to fix it at their own cost — and a tenant or neighbour can raise it under Part 16.
Source: Sponsor Assurances 4/2025 · 14 CFR Part 16
None of this is an emergency. It is a calendar — and calendars are easier to manage two years out than two months out.
The practical cost of waiting is rarely a penalty. It is a narrower set of options: a grant cycle you skip, a modification of standards you cannot support with current data, a land release sitting in abeyance while records are reconstructed. Each is recoverable. They are just cheaper to avoid.